Yesterday, members of the CrossFit Hendersonville Mayhem team shared that they received an invite to compete at the 2025 CrossFit Games. Their team had narrowly missed out on qualifying for the Games via the In-Affiliate Semifinals after they finished in 21st place.
Upon their formal invitation, they quickly accepted and officially registered for the CrossFit Games. The problem, however, is that when they registered there were 21 teams listed on the Games leaderboard.
While many speculated, myself included, that the reason for the backfill invite was that someone had failed a drug test. Back in mid-June I was made aware that CrossFit had begun drug testing team athletes from qualified teams.
Because the team qualifier was only online, drug testing might have surprised some athletes so it was not out of the question that someone had failed a drug test.
However, that was not the case in this situation. Instead, one of the members of CrossFit Furuset Kriger, Marius Tinglum Petterson, just had knee surgery. And because they formed their team late, they did not have a male alternate on the roster.
Thus, the team formally withdrew from the CrossFit Games, thereby opening the door for the 21st place team in Semifinals, CrossFit Hendersonville Mayhem.
As for CrossFit Hendersonville Mayhem, their team trains out of CrossFit Mayhem in Cookeville. When the new rule was implemented this year that prevented multiple teams from the same affiliate to compete at the CrossFit Games, the team had CrossFit Hendersonville back them.
I reported the news at the time and it created quite the controversy in Cookeville. Even Rich Froning locked out their members from the gym…
Maybe that was a joke…I dunno.
Either way, the crew of Rebekah Devine, Wes Peters, Dalton Rodgers and Kensie Campbell are heading to Albany, New York, for the 2025 CrossFit Games.
